Almost everyone would like to change something in their smile. My patients often complain that their teeth are ‘too dark, crooked, crumbling, or missing.’ Ashamed of even small defects, people tend to smile less, cover their mouth with hands or have a trained smile which helps them hide a missing premolar. With time, they turn into a human bonsai. They smile lifting one corner of their mouth or grow a long moustache, add a bit hunched back from hours spent in front of the computer, a slight limp… a painful reminder of a skiing trip.
Is that how we want to see ourselves? We cannot change the colour of our skin but we can do a lot with our smile… All it takes is a good plan. A beautiful smile should be in harmony with the whole face and personality. Teeth proportions are planned on the basis of conversations and analyses of numerous photographs of the face and mouth. Anything to look good when we smile and show our top teeth and when we speak and the bottom teeth are more visible. But the dream beautiful front teeth are just icing on the cake. Without the solid foundations of healthy, straight side teeth, no inflammatory conditions of the bone support around the roots, and the proper functioning of the temporomandibular joint, it is impossible to achieve lasting effects.
In some cases, a smile metamorphosis takes two dentist appointments, in others – multiple appointments within, for example, a year and a half. It all depends on the patient’s expectations and diagnostic test results. I know we are all impatient, and it would be wonderful to make a change in a short time. But it is often worth the wait as the rush is only an apparent time and money saver.
